The booklet for the album contains various pictures. The single covers of "Setting Sun", "Block Rockin' Beats" and "Elektrobank" are all featured, in addition to a picture of an orange, a photo showing the scene used for the cover of Exit Planet Dust except from behind, and various other images. This album was also the last album to use the original Freestyle Dust logo.

After The Chemical Brothers' successful debut album, Exit Planet Dust, released in June 1995, the duo continued to tour but quickly sought to record new material. Following the release of "Life Is Sweet", the final single from that album, the duo had changed labels from Junior Boy's Own to Virgin, with Virgin getting credit on their album Exit Planet Dust as well under the liner notes. The duo released an EP, Loops of Fury in January 1996, consisting of new material and a remix of one of the band's earliest and signature tracks, "Chemical Beats".

The songs "It Doesn't Matter" and "Don't Stop the Rock" were released in June 1996 on vinyl as "Electronic Battle Weapon 1" and "Electronic Battle Weapon 2" respectively as promos for DJs to test in clubs. The duo met up with Noel Gallagher. They were interested in collaborating for a track. The Chemical Brothers had reportedly given him an instrumental track and he then wrote lyrics for the track.[citation needed] The song was released as the single "Setting Sun" in October 1996. The song entered the UK Singles Chart at number one. Stereogum said that "the combination of rave sirens and psych-rock far-outness [on Exit Planet Dust] was probably what convinced people like Noel Gallagher and Mercury Rev to jump onboard".[3]

"Where Do I Begin" was released as a promotional single in early 1997. "Block Rockin' Beats" was released on 24 March 1997 and reached number one in the UK Singles Chart, becoming the duo's second number one single.[4]

The album was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 21 January 2000.[14] In 2004, the album was packaged with 1995's Exit Planet Dust in a limited edition box set as part of EMI's "2CD Originals" collection.

In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Dig Your Own Hole the 49th greatest album of all time, and was also included in Q TV's "Top 100 Albums of All Time" list in 2008. In 2000, the same magazine placed it at number 42 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.[citation needed]NME ranked it at number 414 in its 2014 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[16]Rolling Stone included it in their list of the "100 Best Albums of the Nineties",[17] as did Spin.[18]

As with all other albums by The Chemical Brothers, some of the tracks segue into the next. These are 2 into 3, 3 into 4, 6 into 7, 7 into 8, and finally 10 into 11. In the CD version's U.S. pressing has a slightly different time running of the songs, which track 10, "Where Do I Begin" finished at 6:51 and track 11, "The Private Psychedelic Reel" finished at 9:27.